Baseball-sized hail causes injuries

Shan Rogers went to work Thursday with a brace and heavy bandage protecting her freshly stitched thumb, the combined effect of a huge hailstone and a home sewing kit.

The Diamond Shamrock gas station at 80th Street and Slide Road, of which she is manager, sustained a damaged roof, electrical problems and an intense soaking from Wednesday's storm. But the baseball-sized hail at her home between Woodrow and Slaton led to her injury.

"We was watching the clouds," she said. "We've got a big glass pane window in the living room. Then the wind picked up and the hail started."

As the storm began to crescendo, Rogers said, the hail ranged from golf-ball to baseball-sized chunks hitting the house.

"We watched it for about 20 minutes, and then the windows just started shattering in our bedroom," she said. "We both grabbed a mattress apiece and started to put them up against the windows, when all of a sudden, the next thing I know, my thumb was cut."

A baseball-sized hail ball had smashed through another bedroom window pane. The glass flew toward her and cut between the first and second digits of her left thumb.

Rogers said she went into the kitchen to wait for the bleeding to stop. It took about an hour, she said.

"I called the hospital and told them that I lived out in the country and couldn't get out there right now," she said. "I asked them, you know, what can I do in the meantime. They told me that they would have to see it and they weren't going to roll out the red carpet for me. So I proceeded to get everything out of the cabinet and stitched it up myself."

With her sewing kit, Rogers put four stitches in by herself.

"I did pretty good, too. Oh, and this is all after I got the nerve back in it. I wasn't in shock or anything. I got nauseous three times and had to stop."

Rogers and her husband, Buddy, have yet to assess all the damage to their house.

"We just got the house a year ago, and they wouldn't insure it because it had three layers of shingles on the roof," she said. "Oh, and I lost my goat house and I don't know where it is."

Buddy Rogers said the wind picked up the goat house, and they still haven't found any trace of it.

"It's just gone," he said. "The goat's still there, but the house is gone. The wind picked it up over a fence and carried it away somewhere."